West Wing Story

Rival Gangs, A Puerto Rican Heroine – Sounds Like a Broadway Musical to Me

Conservatives are already grinding their axes to attack Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s nominee to replace Justice Souter on the Supreme Court, as a liberal activist who will overturn the Constitution with her own brand of compassion for the disadvantaged. Sotomayor “thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written,” jeered the right-wing Judicial Confirmation Network. “This isn't a jurisprudence that the Founders would recognize,” hissed the Wall Street Journal this morning.

However, conservatives are already defeated on this one and they know it. Sotomayor is academically brilliant and has the relevant experience the right claimed was both so important and so lacking in the man who nominated her. While she is clearly liberal, she is far from radical. It is highly unlikely she will generate the same solid opposition on principle the President’s budget inspired. What is more, Republican Senators run the risk of alienating both women and Hispanics, two groups their Party desperately needs to win in future elections, if they attack her too viciously and vicariously.

Republicans will raise questions about her jurisprudence and it will probably even get ugly at times but this is more an attempt to ensure Obama gets no credit for any sense of moderation in his selection. Baring some unforeseen scandal, Sotomayor confirmation is already all but confirmed.

This is the stuff of American dynamism – an African-American President appointing the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice, the daughter of impoverished immigrants, over the Beltways stuffy status quo. This is also the stuff of Broadway musicals – two rival gangs locked in a deadly polarized fight as two star-crossed lawyers discover each other from across a crowded Congressional hearing.

I call it West Wing Story.

(SCENE: The Oval Office. President Obama sits at his desk. Vice-President Joe Biden and the Cabinet surround him. Biden is agitated as Obama dreamily looks out the window.)

OBAMA: I know she’s out there somewhere, Joe. I feel like something’s coming and it’s gonna be great.

BIDEN: Stop gettin’ all romantical, Barack. You’re one of us. Part of our gang.

(Sings) When you’re a Lib,
You’re a Lib all pre-paid
From your first welfare check
To your last Medicaid.

You’re never alone,
The government’s your grubstake!
Your healthcare is set –
Unless you need a medic,
’Cause that’s a headache!

You’re set for life
With a capital ‘L’,
Which you’ll never wash off
Till they drag you to hell.
When you’re a Lib,
You stay a Lib!


(SCENE: Obama meets Judge Sotomayor at a DC rumble/cocktail party. They steal away and talk for several hours about torts on a fire escape. Obama climbs down and walks aimlessly through the back alleyways of Georgetown.)

OBAMA: Sonia Sotomayor . . . Sonia!

(Sings) Sonia!
I’ve just picked a judge named Sonia.
Activist as can be,
Says courts make policy
For me.

Sonia!
She rules once and there’s baseball playing,
She rules twice and there no public praying.

Sonia,
I’ve got to find more like Sonia!

She’ll treat the Constitution like a turd,
So-ni-a!


(SCENE: Obama introduces Sotomayor as his nominee at a White House Rose Garden press conference. Beneath his glowing remarks are angry scowls and mumbled words about “lousy Puerto Ricans.” Sotomayor makes her remarks.)

REPORTER: Judge Sotomayor, how do you feel today?

SOTOMAYOR: How do I feel? Why that’s easy . . .

(Sings) I feel petit,
Empathetic,
I feel petit and ready to rule!
And I pity
Those misguided constructionist fools

(OBAMA & BIDEN: La-la-la-la-la . . . la-la . . . la . . . la-la)

See the Puerto Rican appellate judge –
What could my jurisprudence be?
I’ll write hand gun laws,
Make big business bawl,
Government can sprawl,
Abortions for free!

I’m empowered,
I’m endowed,
Overturn every law on the books,
I got picked
By a liberal silver-tongued crook!


(SCENE: The Libs archrivals, the Cons, are meeting to decide how to deal with Sotomayor. More harsh and dangerous words are spoken. Suddenly, their leader, Riff-Rush, jumps up and quiets them down.)

RIFF-RUSH: My friends, you’re going about this all wrong.

(Sings) Stall, fight, GOP,
Go right, boys!
It lost us the last election,
So do it more, boys!
Just say ‘no’,
We gotta go
Through hard times between.
If we keep it up like this,
Out of power ’til 2016.

Go boys, go,
But don’t be Soreto’s ploy toys.
Just stall and fight, boys,
Go right!


(SCENE: Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing. The Republican Senators are out for blood. Everyone fears the worst.)

LEAHY: Would the nominee care to make an opening statement?

SOTOMAYOR: Yes, yes I would.

(Sings) Puerto Rico, my mama’s old fling,
Now her daughter’s grabbed the brass ring.
Always the Senate knives honing,
Always the Executive groaning,
And the banks all owing,
The middle class screaming,
You need a house cleaning!
I am one bad-assed Latina,
Go suck on this, jalapeña!

I make the rules in America
From my high stool in America.
You have it all in America,
Don’t cross the law in America!

Conservatives in America
Had all the dibs in America.
Tax all the rich in America,
Don’t call me no spic white America!

No more schism in America,
Socialism in America.
Immigrants fine in America,
Illegal slime in America!


LEAHY: You’re confirmed!

(Everyone joins in a frenzied dance number and they all live unhappily ever after.)

FIN